He serveth a Plaisterer, sheweth some cheats in that Trade, he is even with the Maid of the House for her sloath, and punishing him; giveth his Master a fall from the Scaffold, and runneth away from him into the Country.

I was now grown a good sturdy Lad, and it being then the spring of the year, I was entertained into a Plaisterers service, I imagined with my self that there could be no knavery in this trade, but after I had bin there a while, I found there was a great deal of difference in our labour when we work't by the day, and when we wrought by the great; in the one I could not be too quick for my Master, in the other he cared not how slow; dispatching that in six days in the one, which we would hardly do in ten days in the other; in the one we minded only our work, in the other we used to lengthen out the time with discourses of wenches, foot-ball playing and such like; for so we brought the day to an end, we cared not so much for our work going forward, seeing our wages ran parallel with the day, and when that was done, we counted our money due, whether we earned it or no. In this service I lived like a Prince to my hearts content, for my Master would not only wink at any Rogueries that I committed, but also countenance me in the doing of them. When we wrought upon scaffolds in the street it was a great pleasure to me to throw the morter upon the heads of young wenches as they passed by; and at other times with our whiting to bespatter Gentlemens Cloaks as they walked under us, that they looked as if the Crow had shit upon them. My Master kept a maid who was none of those huswifes that use to disturb other peoples sleeps by their early rising; she would endure three calls in a morning, and when she began to stirre, she would groan sadly, stretching out her arms and legs, and giving a two or three ha’s to get upon her breech, where she would sit in her bed half an hour lacing of her boddice, and throwing of her coats over her head, so that we were forced to put up the victuals we carried with us our selves. My Master asked me if I could not invent a way to punish her sloath? I told him I would do my best endeavor; so that day I got some Horse-hair and shred it fit for my purpose, telling my Master what I would do with it; at night when he came home, he sent the maid for two pots of Ale, when she was gone for it, I took my shred hair, and strowed the same in her bed betwixt the sheets, which plagued her worse then if she had had half a peck of six footed vermine to her bedfellows; a good while she endured it, being exceeding loath to be at the pains of putting on her Cloaths, for she always accounted the trouble of dressing and undressing her self to be a great plague inflicted on mortals to disturb them of their ease, accounting the Birds in a far happier condition than men, who go to bed and rise with their doublet and breeches on, and was resolved if she changed her Religion to have turned Adamite, that she might have saved that labour of dressing her self; but the hair tormented her so abominably, that nolens volens she was forced to rise, and sit up until the morning, when looking in the sheets she found the cause of her disquietness; the cunning Jade made no speech of it at all, but was as pleasant that morning as if she had ailed nothing all night; which made me to mistrust my art, and think I had not done my business right. All that day she was busied with her thoughts in contriving mischief against me, the result whereof was, that she took the sheets from off her bed and laid them on mine, whereby she paid me home in my own coyn, and whereof I could not justly complain, seeing what was sause for a Goose was sauce for a Gander. I had work’d very hard that day, and would willingly have taken some rest at night, but it was in vain to think of it, I might almost have lain as well upon pins and needles as on what I did, I then thought upon the story which is usually told Boys when they first come to be Prentices concerning their enroling, that they must be rol’d in a Barrel drove full of nails, with the points sticking up, and thought this punishment to be little inferior to that; flesh and blood could not endure it, wherefore I got up and uncased my bed of the sheets, creeping in betwixt the blanckets where I lay all night. In the morning the maid asked me how I slept that night? I told her very well, for my skin was armor of proof against the biting of fleas, or any other disturbance whatsoever, but though I carried fair weather in my countenance, my heart boyled in revenge against her, wherefore that day I went and bought two penny-worth of Cow-itch, which is a drug of that nature, that where it touches the flesh, it will make them so scrub seventeen times worse than if they were plagued with the itch, with this I anointed her sheets in the same manner as I strowed them with horse-hair before; but if the hair netled, this fleyed, she had needed to have had Briarius hundred hands to have scratcht her self at once, for when she came to be a little hot in her bed, she fared like a mad woman; the more she scratcht the more it itcht, so that by what she seek't to allay her paine, she encreas’d it: the going out of her bed would not cure her now, she carried her distemper along with her, so that knowing not how to ease her self, she bellowed like a Bull, and made such a quarter, that the whole house was disturbed with her bellowing. All night she continued thus; in the morning I began to play upon her, told her that the scratching of her arse signified we should have butter cheap, and that how ever things went she would be sure to Rub through with them, but had I not took my heels, she had so rubbed my ears for it, as would have turned my mirth into mourning. That day was very fatal to me, and my running from the maid in the morning, prognosticated I should run from my Master before night. It so happened that we had some work to do that day at a tavern in Thames-street, the back-side whereof adjoyned to the Thames, which the Vintner would have beautified next to the water-side; now for to make him a scaffold to work on, he put the ends of two long sticks out at the window, laying a board over them for him to stand on the out-side; and on the in-side fastned the end of the one with a cord, but wanting a cord for the other, he bid me to sit on it, thereby to keep it from kicking up, thus was all things ordered, my Master gotten up upon his scaffold, which was just over the water, and I sitting on the end of the stick; he fell a singing as he was accustomed to do at his work, and I fell a nodding, being lulled a sleep with his singing; in my sleep I dreamt that my old Master the Cook was alive again, that I lived with him, and that our House was full of Guests; by and by some Gentlemen knocked in the next room, I hearing them, imagined that I was called, and thereupon cryed out, Anon, Anon, I come I come Sir, and thereupon fell a running, when presently up flew the stick, and down fell my Master, crying all the way he fell help, help, I shall be drown’d, the noise he made waked me out of my sleep, when looking forth of the window, I saw my Master floating like a shitle-cock upon the water. I seeing what had happened, thought more upon saving my self than him, imagining if he were drowned, that I should be hanged, and therefore that I might not die the death of a dog, to prevent it, I run away, leaving my Master to shift for himself, whom though yet I loved well, and would not have parted from him but for this accident.

I made great haste in going, and yet knew not whither to go; East, West, North, or South, all was indifferent to me, for it is impossible he can be out of his way to whom all ways are alike. London though large and populous I judged no Coverture for me, I wanting those two great helps of concealment, mony and friends. The Country therefore I pitcht upon, invited thereto the more, it being then the merry month of May, the pleasantest time of all the year, the earth having then put on her richest apparel, the meddow cloathed in green, the fields beautified with flowers, and the woods adorned with Violets, Cowslips, and Primroses; the winged Choristers of the Forrest, warbled forth their ditties very harmoniously, the Lambs friskt and leapt, dancing lavalto’s on the flowry pastures, and the murmuring stream made a noyse like to a Chime of Bells, running through their winding Meanders. As I walked thus in the Countrey, encircled with pleasures, and every where having my eyes satiated with variety of pleasing objects, I thought my self to be in Paradise, and imagined no pleasure in the world comparable to that of a Country life; Happy, yea thrice happy (thought I) is he who not playing with his wings in the golden flames of the Court, nor setting his foot in the busie throngs of the City, nor running up and down in the intricate mazes of the Law, can be content in the winter to sit by a Country fire, and in the Summer to lay his head on the green pillows of the earth. The Country Cottage is neither batter’d down by the Canon in time of War, nor pester’d with clamorous Suits in time of peace. The fall of Cedars that tumble from the tops of Kingdoms, the ruine of great Houses, that bury Families in their overthrow, and the ways of shipwracks, that beget even shreiks in the heart of Cities, never send their terrors thither: that place stands as safe from the shock of such violent storms, as the Bay-tree does from lightening; their sleeps are secure from such dangers, and their wakings as pleasant as golden dreams. In the homely village art thou more safe, than in a fortified Castle; the stings of Envy, nor the bullets of Treason are never shot through those thin walls: sound healths are drunk out of the wholesome wooden dish, when the Cup of Gold boyles over with Poyson. Hast thou a desire to rule? get up to the mountains, and thou shalt see the greatest trees stand trembling before thee, to do thee Reverence, those mayest thou call thy Nobles. Thou shalt have rancks of oak on each side of thee, which thou maist call thy Guard, thou shalt see Willows bending at every blast; whom thou maist call thy flatterers: thou shalt see valleys humbled at thy feet; whom thou maist term thy slaves. Wouldest thou behold battels? step into the fields, there shalt thou see excellent combats between the standing Corn and the windes. Art thou a tyrant? and delightest in the fall of great ones? muster then thy Harvesters together, and down with those proud Summer Lords when they are at highest. Wouldest thou have Subsidies paid thee? the Plough sends thee in Corn, the Meadow gives thee her pasture, the Trees pay thee custome with their fruit, the Ox bestows upon thee his labor, the Sheep his wooll, the Cow her milk, the Fowles their Feathers, &c. Doest thou call for Musick? no Prince in the world keeps more skilful musitians, the Birds are thy Consort, and the winde instruments they play upon yield ten thousand tunes.

Thus went I on contemplating the Summers pride and the Earths bravery, and from them both concluded the great felicity of a Country life, as if the one would never fade, and the other always endure; resolving in my thoughts never to see London again, being ravished with the delights of the verdant fields, and enamour’d on the beauties of the Spring, accounting none truly happy, but he who enjoyed the felicities of a Country life; Is he addicted to study, Heaven is the Library; the Sun, Moon and Stars his books to teach him Astronomy, that great volume his Ephemerides out of which he may Calculate predictions of times to follow; yea in the very clouds are written lessons of Divinity for him to instruct him in wisdome, the turning over their leaves, teach him the variation of seasons, & how to dispose his business for all weathers, who therefore would not consume his youth in such delightfull studies, that have power in them to keep off old age longer than it would? or when old age doth come, is able to give it the livelyhood and vigour of youth? who would not rather sit at the foot of a hill, tending a flock of sheep, than at the helm of Authority, controuling the stubborn and unruly multitude? Better it is in the solitary woods and in the wilde fields, to be a man among Beasts, than in the midst of a peopled City, to be a Beast amongst men.

As I was thus stricken into admiration of these beauties, and wholy taken up in contemplations of the felicities of an retired life, being already in my thoughts an absolute Country-man, I being now some miles distant from the Metropolitan City of our fruitful Albion, on a sudden the welkin began to rore, and send forth terrible peales of thunder, the serene sky was over-shadowed, and Phoebus hid his head behind a cloud, the Heavens began first to weep small tears, afterwards to pour them in full Rivolets upon the thirsty earth, I had then no Pent-house to walk under to keep me from the rain, nor was there a red lattice at every nook and corner (as at London) to give me entertainment; the spreading boughs of the sturdy oak were too feeble to defend me from being wet; I looked like a drench't Mouse, having never a dry thread on me; what to do I knew not, money I had but little, friends none, a stranger both to the place and people, unexperienced in the world, as in the way where I travelled; the consideration of those things made me add more moysture to the earth by the salt tears that trickled from my eyes; to stand still I thought was in vain, so forwards I went wet without, and dry within, (sorrow they say causeth drowth) at length I spyed by a corner of a wood a little thatcht Cottage, thither I went, and found by an old rotten stick that darted out of it, in imitation of a Sign-post, that it was an Ale-house; this something revived my drooping spirits, so in I went, to dry my out-side and wet my in-side, where I found a good fire, and store of company of both sexes merrily trouling the bowl about, singing of Catches, and smoaking Tobacco; no sooner was I entered, but one of them drank to me a full cup, so down I sat amongst them, being all alike free Citizens of the wide world, the strong Ale soon washed away all sorrow from my heart, and now that I had a warm fire to sit by, and a house over my head, I bid a fig for all foul weather.